Letting The Veil Be Lifted, by Ludvig

Many years ago, a friend of mine showed me a beautiful documentary about an old man who lives in the north of Sweden. For the last forty years or so, this man regularly lets his body be “taken over” by another entity who calls himself “Ambres”. The Presence of this entity was felt deeply in my mind as I was watching the TV screen; the Love streaming from his eyes and radiating from the words spoken resonated so deeply with me. At that time, my mind was beginning to open up to the idea that my real purpose in life was something beyond the five senses, and I was profoundly moved by this documentary. There was a recognition in my heart – a recognition of a clear reflection of Truth, that was made available to me through watching this documentary.
Now, I feel I am beginning to actually experience what Ambres was sharing about, and the words I heard him speak in the documentary many years ago come back into my mind but somehow with a sense of newness and freshness to them. There is a sense of discovery. (The following are not direct quotes, just the words as I remember them now, and they are much more beautiful in Swedish than in my direct translation.) Ambres describes the physical world as “maya”, which he equates with illusion: “A veil of the senses, covering over our indestructible divine reality.” At one point in the documentary, the question “what is the meaning of life” is asked. Ambres responds with something like this: “The meaning of life is that the human being at some point shall go within herself, and ask: Who am I? Where do I come from? Who created this “I” that is so subjective? And there she will find a power that is so immense, far beyond anything she ever could imagine was there. It is present.”

Yesterday morning, Emily was leaving for the airport and Drew and I were walking with her to the bus station. We arrived about ten mintues early, and after talking a little we waited in silence. I sat down on the curb, feeling something deep within me calling me to be very present, to observe the scene very closely. I could see people waiting for the bus; some standing up, some sitting down, some talking, a woman smoking a cigarette and talking to an old man. Right in front of me was a woman in her fifties, standing alone. She wore make-up and it looked like she was quite dressed up. She was looking around, like she was searching for something. As I was noticing all the small details, a thought came into my mind: “This is a very, very convincing dream.” A bus passed by, and I watched it closely, seeing and getting a sense of all the seemingly separate parts that had been put together in such a way that the bus would go. The wheels going round, the engine purring, all the metal plates of the body, the windows – everything. And then I thought of all the different generations of buses and vehicles preceding this model; the seeming evolution of motor vehicles of this planet (perhaps my thoughts have some connection with the fact that I’ve been immersing my mind in searching for a community car for the last weeks). And I could see that this was just one category of forms among billions on this planet, and I could sense the immensity of the number of variations of moving vehicles in the whole of cosmos. And then I could sense the same immensity of variations among what we call “organic life-forms”, human beings just one of them, located on one tiny little planet in the vastness of the cosmos. And even within that one form (humans), I could sense the seemingly endless variations of looks, behavioural patterns, personalities, preferences, ways of talking, walking and on and on and on… And then there was an indescribable sense of starting to see that they are all the same. The enormous variations of forms feels so awe-inspiring that it feels strange to even question the reality of them, but if they are all part of the same original thought, then they must all be exactly the same in their essence. I am now trying to put words to an experience that is really beyond description.

The bus arrived and we got up, loaded Emily’s bags in the luggage compartment and hugged. It felt to me like I had been sitting there on the curb for at least half an hour, but it was probably not more than a couple of minutes. The bus departed, and as Drew and I were walking back I felt a sense of newness and curiosity flowing through me. There were lots of people out, walking around, talking to each other. I watched them in amazement. They all seemed a bit lost and aimless in my perception, like they didn’t really know what they were doing. It all felt very innocent to me, and I flowed with the same innocence, walking the familiar path back to the community in silence.

I remember some more words from Ambres, when he talks about love. At one point he says: “I love you… much more than you can comprehend. But it is not a subjective form of love.” He speaks of the totality of love: “Some of you say ‘when I find the totality of love, then I will really grab all I can get’, but that is not possible to do. The totality of love does not say ‘I’m gonna get to know it’, the totality of love KNOWS.” And I start to feel now that somehow I know what that means.